Dirty Laundry

At some point on a vacation. one must do laundry. Some very light travelers advocate doing hand washing in the hotel sink and drying things overnight. This may work well for undies, pantyhose, and summer shirts, not so much for jeans, heavy socks, and sweaters.

There are several options to get clean clothes while on the road::

• Have the hotel do it for you. This can be costly, but if you’re more focused on sightseeing than laundry this can be worth your while.
• Sometimes hotels have coin-operated washers and dryers for patrons to use. The hotel we stayed in in Lyon had that option.
• If you’re going to be somewhere for a week or more, rent an apartment that has a washer and dryer. Vacation apartment rentals can be comparable in price to a hotel, especially if you factor in the price of eating out and doing laundry.
• Find a laundromat. Most laundromats have the ambience of a Medieval dungeon.They’re hot, humid, dirty, and often windowless. The reading material, if any, dates from 1997. Sometimes in Europe you can find a laundry where you can either do it yourself or the proprietor can do it for you. On our first trip to Seattle in 1994, we found a laundromat/restaurant called Sit and Spin in the Belltown neighborhood. Unfortunately, it’s long defunct.

It was a pleasant surprise last week when Julian and I did laundry in a laundromat near my mother’s apartment. Mom has a small washer, but no dryer. There were windows on three sides of the building. The tables and chairs were clean. There was even a television on site so we could watch the football game while our clothes were spinning away. We were impressed. Chances are we’ll never see that anywhere else.